"What about him?" I asked.
"Ken was mixed up with McGuane."
"How?"
"That's all I know."
I thought about the Ghost. "Was John Asselta involved too?"
My father went rigid. I saw fear in his eyes. "Why would you ask me that?"
"The three of them were all friends in high school," I began and then I decided to go the rest of the way. "I saw him recently."
"Asselta?"
"Yes."
His voice was soft. "He's back?"
I nodded.
Dad closed his eyes.
"What is it?"
"He's dangerous," my father said.
"I know that."
He pointed at my face. "Did he do that?"
Good question, I thought. "In part, at least."
"In part?"
"It's a long story, Dad."
He closed his eyes again. When he opened them, he put his hands on his thighs and stood. "Let's go home," he said.
I wanted to ask him more, but I knew that now was not the time. I followed him. Dad had a hard time getting down the rickety bleacher steps. I offered him a hand. He refused it. When we both reached the gravel, we turned toward the path. And there, smiling patiently with his hands in his pockets, stood the Ghost.
For a moment I thought it was my imagination, as if our thinking about him had conjured up this horrific mirage. But I heard the sharp intake of air coming from my father. And then I heard that voice.
"Ah, isn't this touching?" the Ghost said.
My father stepped in front of me as though trying to shield me. "What do you want?" he shouted.
But the Ghost laughed. " "Gee, son, when I struck out in the big game," " he said, mocking, " 'it took a whole roll of Life Savers to make me feel better." "
We stayed rooted to the spot. The Ghost looked up at the sky, closed his eyes, took a great big sniff of air. "Ah, Little League." He lowered his gaze to my father. "Do you remember that time my old man showed up at a game, Mr. Klein?"
My father set his jaw.
"It was a great moment, Will. Really. A classic. My dear ol' dad was so wasted, he took a leak right on the side of the snack bar. Can you imagine? I thought Mrs. Tansmore was going to have a stroke." He laughed heartily, the sound clawing at me as it echoed. When it died down, he added, "Good times, eh?"
"What do you want?" my father said again.
But the Ghost was on his own track now. He would not be derailed.
"Say, Mr. Klein, do you remember coaching that all-star team in the state finals?"
My father said, "I do."
"Ken and I were in, what, fourth grade, was it?"
Nothing from my father this time.
The Ghost snapped, "Oh wait." The smile slid off his face. "I almost forgot. I missed that year, didn't I? And the next year too. Jail time, don't you know."
"You never went to jail," my father said.
"True, true, you're absolutely right, Mr. Klein. I was" the Ghost made quote marks with his skinny fingers "hospitalized. You know what that means, Willie boy? They lock up a child with the most depraved whack-jobs that ever cursed this wretched planet, so as to make him all better. My first roommate, his name was Timmy, was a pyromaniac. At the tender age of thirteen, Timmy killed his parents by setting them on fire. One night he stole a book of matches from a drunk orderly and lit up my bed. I got to go to the medical wing for three weeks. I almost set myself on fire so I wouldn't have to go back."
A car drove down Meadowbrook Road. I could see a little boy in the back, perched high by a safety seat of some kind. There was no wind.
The trees stood too still.
"That was a long time ago," my father said softly.
The Ghost's eyes narrowed as if he were giving my father's words very special attention. Finally he nodded and said, "Yes, yes, it was.
You're right about that too, Mr. Klein. And it wasn't like I had a great home life to begin with. I mean, what were my prospects anyway?
You could almost look at what happened to me as a blessing: I could get therapy instead of living with a father who beat me."
I realized then that he was talking about the killing of Daniel Skinner, the bully who'd been stabbed with the kitchen knife. But what struck me then, what gave me pause, was how his story sounded like the kids we help at Covenant House abusive home life, early crime, some form of psychosis. I tried to look at the Ghost like that, as if he were just one of my kids. But the picture would not hold. He was not a kid anymore. I don't know when they cross over, at what age they go from being a kid who needs help to a degenerate who should be locked up, or even if that was fair.
"Hey'Willieboy?"
The Ghost tried to meet my eye then, but my father leaned in the way of even his gaze. I put a hand on his shoulder as if to tell him I could handle it.
"What? "I said.
"You do know I was" again with the finger quotes "hospitalized again, don't you?"
"Yes," I said.
"I was a senior. You were a sophomore."
"I remember."
"I had only one visitor the whole time I was there. Do you know who it was?"
I nodded. The answer was Julie.
"Ironic, don't you think?"
"Did you kill her?" I asked.
"Only one of us here is to blame."
My father stepped back in the way. "That's enough," he said.
I slid to the side. "What do you mean?"
"You, Willie boy. I mean you."
I was confused. "What?"
"That's enough," my father said again.
"You were supposed to fight for her," the Ghost went on. "You were supposed to protect her."
The words, even coming from this lunatic, pierced my chest like an ice pick.
"Why are you here?" my father demanded.
"The truth, Mr. Klein? I'm not exactly sure."
"Leave my family alone. You want someone, you take me."
"No, sir, I don't want you." He considered my father, and I felt something cold coil in the pit of my belly. "I think I prefer you this way."
The Ghost gave a little wave good-bye then and stepped into the wooded area. We watched him move deeper into the brush, fading away until, like his nickname, he vanished. We stood there for another minute or two. I could hear my father's breathing, hollow and tinny, as if coming up from a deep cavern.
"Dad?"
But he had already started toward the path. "Let's go home, Will."
Chapter Forty-Two.
My father would not talk.
When we got back to the house, he headed up to his bedroom, the one he had shared with my mother for nearly forty years, and closed the door.
There was so much coming at me now. I tried to sort through it, but it was too much. My brain threatened to shut down. And still I didn't know enough. Not yet anyway. I needed to learn more.
Sheila.
There was one more person who might be able to shed some light on the enigma that had been the love of my life. So I made my excuses, said my good-byes, and headed back into the city. I hopped on a subway and headed up to the Bronx. The skies had started to darken and the neighborhood was bad, but for once in my life, I was beyond being scared.
Before I even knocked, the door opened a crack, the chain in place.
Tanya said, "He's asleep."
"I want to talk to you," I said.
"I have nothing to say."
"I saw you at the memorial service."
"Go away."
"Please," I said. "It's important."
Tanya sighed and took off the chain. I slipped inside. The dim lamp was on in the far corner, casting the faintest of glows. As I let my eyes wander over this most depressing place, I wondered if Tanya was not as much a prisoner here as Louis Castman. I faced her. She shrunk back as if my gaze had the ability to scald.
"How long do you plan on keeping him here?" I asked.
"I don't make plans," she replied.
/> Tanya did not offer me a seat. We both just stood there, facing each other. She crossed her arms and waited.
"Why did you come to the service?" I asked.
"I wanted to pay my respects."
"You knew Sheila?"
"Yes."
"You were friends?"
Tanya may have smiled. Her face was so mangled, the scars running jagged lines with her mouth, I couldn't be sure. "Not even close."
"Why did you come then?"
She cocked her head to the side. "You want to hear something weird?"
I was not sure how to respond, so I settled for a nod.
"That was the first time I've been out of this apartment in sixteen months."
I was not sure how to respond to that either, so I tried, "I'm glad you came."
Tanya looked at me skeptically. The room was silent save for her breathing. I don't know what was physically wrong with her, if it was connected to the brutal slashing or not, but every breath sounded as though her throat were a narrow straw with a few drops of liquid stuck inside.
I said, "Please tell me why you came."
"It's like I told you. I wanted to pay my respects." She paused. "And I thought I could help."
"Help?"
She looked at the door to Louis Castman's bedroom. I followed her gaze. "He told me why you came here. I thought maybe I could fill in some more of the pieces."
"What did he say?"
"That you were in love with Sheila." Tanya moved closer to the lamp.
It was hard not to look away. She finally sat and gestured for me to do likewise. "Is that true?"
"Yes."
"Did you murder her?" Tanya asked.
The question startled me. "No."
She did not seem convinced.
"I don't understand," I said. "You came to help?"
"Yes."
"Then why did you run off ?"
"You haven't figured that out?"
I shook my head.
She sat more like collapsed onto a chair. Her hands fell into her lap, and her body started rocking back and forth.
"Tanya?"
"I heard your name," she said.
"Pardon?"
"You asked why I ran off." She stopped rocking. "It was because I heard your name."
"I don't understand."
She looked at the door again. "Louis didn't know who you were. Neither did I not until I heard your name at the service, when Squares eulogized her. You're Will Klein."
"Yes."
"And" her voice grew soft now, so soft I had to lean forward to hear it "you're Ken's brother."
Silence.
"You knew my brother?"
"We met. A long time ago."
"How?"
"Through Sheila." She straightened her back and looked at me. It was odd. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. That's nonsense. Tanya's eyes were normal. I saw no scars there, no hint of defect, no shade of her history or her torments. "Louis told you about a big-time gangster who got involved with Sheila."
"Yes."
"That was your brother."
I shook my head. I was about to protest further, but I held it back when I saw that she had more to say.
"Sheila never fit into this lifestyle. She was too ambitious. She and Ken found each other. He helped set her up at a fancy college in Connecticut, but that was more to sell drugs than anything else. Out here, you see guys slicing up each other's intestines for a spot on a street corner. But a fancy rich-kid school, if you could move in and control that, you could score an easy mint."
"And you're saying that my brother set this up?"
She started rocking again. "Are you seriously telling me you didn't know?"
"Yes."
"I thought " She stopped.
"What?"
She shook her head. "I don't know what I thought."
"Please," I said.
"It's just weird. First Sheila's with your brother. Now she pops up again with you. And you act like you don't know anything about it."
Again, I did not know how to respond. "So what happened to Sheila?"
"You'd know better than me."
"No, I mean back then. When she was up at this college."
"I never saw her after she left the life. I got a couple of calls, that's all. But those stopped too. But Ken was bad news. You and Squares, you seemed nice. Like maybe she found some good. But then when I heard your name ..." She shrugged the thought away.
"Does the name Carly mean anything to you?" I asked.
"No. Should it?"
"Did you know that Sheila had a daughter?"
That got Tanya rocking again. Her voice was pained. "Oh God."
"You knew?"
She shook her head hard. "No."
zyz I followed right up. "Do you know a Philip McGuane?"
Still shaking her head. "No."
"How about John Asselta? Or Julie Miller?"
"No," she said quickly. "I don't know any of these people." She stood now and spun away from me. "I had hoped she escaped," she said.
"She did," I said. "For a time."
I saw her shoulders slump. Her breathing seemed even more labored. "It should have ended better for her."
Tanya started toward the door then. I did not follow. I looked back to Louis Castman's room. Again I thought that there were two prisoners here. Tanya stopped. I could feel her eyes on me. I turned to her.
"There are surgeries," I said to her. "Squares knows people. We can help."
"No, thank you."
"You can't live on vengeance forever."
She tried a smile. "You think that's what this is about?" She pointed to her mutilated face. "You think I keep him here because of this?"
I was confused again.
Tanya shook her head. "He told you how he recruited Sheila?"
I nodded.
"He gives himself all the credit. He talks about his natty clothes and smooth lines. But most of the girls, even the ones fresh off the bus, they're afraid to go with a guy alone. So you see, what really made the difference was that Louis had a partner. A woman. To help close the sale. To lull the girls into feeling safe."
She waited. Her eyes were dry. A tremor began deep inside me and spread out. Tanya moved to the door. She opened it for me. I left and never went back.
Chapter Forty-Three.
There were two phone messages on my voice mail. The first was from Sheila's mother, Edna Rogers. Her tone was stiff and impersonal. The funeral would be in two days, she stated, at a chapel in Mason, Idaho.
Mrs. Rogers gave me times and addresses and directions from Boise. I saved the message.
The second was from Yvonne Sterno. She said it was urgent that I call her right away. Her tone was one of barely restrained excitement. That made me uneasy. I wondered if she'd learned the true identity of Owen Enfield and if she had, would that be a positive or negative thing?
Yvonne answered on the first ring.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Got something big here, Will."
"I'm listening."
"We should have realized it earlier."
"What's that?"
"Put the pieces together. A guy with a pseudonym. The FBI's strong interest. All the secrecy. A small community in a quiet area. You with me?"
"Not really, no."
"Cripco was the key," she went on. "As I said, it's a dummy corporation. So I checked with a few sources. Truth is, they don't try to hide them that hard. The cover isn't that deep. The way they figure it, if someone spots the guy, they know or they don't know. They aren't going to do a big background check."
"Yvonne?" I said.
"What?"
"I don't have a clue what you're talking about."
"Cripco, the company who leased the house and the car, traces back to the United States marshal's office."
Once again I felt my head teeter and spin. I let it go and a bright hope surfaced in the dark, murky blur. "Wait a second," I said. "Ar
e you saying that Owen Enfield is an undercover agent?"
"No, I don't think so. I mean, what would he be investigating at Stonepointe someone cheating at gin rummy?"
"What then?"
"The U. S. marshal not the FBI runs the witness protection program."
More confusion. "So you're saying that Owen Enfield .. . ?"
"That the government was hiding him here, yeah. They gave him a new identity. The key, like I said before, is that they don't take the background that deep. A lot of people don't know that. Hell, sometimes they're even dumb about it. My source at the paper was telling me about this black drug dealer from Baltimore who they stuck in a lily-white suburb outside Chicago. A total screw up. That wasn't the case here, but if, say, Gotti were searching for Sammy the Bull, they'd either recognize him or not. They wouldn't bother checking his background to make sure. You know what I mean?"
"I think so."
"So the way I figure it, this Owen Enfield was bad news. Most of the guys in witness protection are. So he's in the program and for some reason he murders these two guys and runs off. The FBI doesn't want that out. Think how embarrassing it would be the government cuts a deal with a guy and then he goes on a murder spree? Bad press all the way around, you know what I mean?"
I didn't say anything.
"Will?"
"Yeah."
There was a pause. "You're holding out on me, aren't you?"
I thought about what to do.
"Come on," she said. "Back and forth, remember? I give, you give."
I don't know what I would have said if I would have told her that my brother and Owen Enfield were one and the same, if I would have concluded that publicizing this was better than keeping it in the dark but the decision was taken from me. I heard a click and then the phone went dead.
There was a sharp knock on the door.
"Federal officers. Open up now."
I recognized the voice. It belonged to Claudia Fisher. I reached for the knob, twisted it, and was nearly knocked over. Fisher burst in with a gun drawn. She told me to put my hands up. Her partner, Darryl Wilcox, was with her. They both looked pale, weary, and maybe even frightened.
"What the hell is this?" I said.
"Hands up now!"
I did as she asked. She took out her cuffs, and then, as though thinking better of it, she stopped. Her voice was suddenly soft.
"You'll come without a hassle?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Then come on, let's go."
Chapter Forty-Four.
I did not argue. I did not call their bluff or demand a phone call or any of that. I did not even ask them where we were going. Such protestations at this delicate juncture would, I knew, be either superfluous or harmful.